Tag: bipedalism

No, this ostrich is not decked out early for Halloween. The bird’s glowing get-up is part of an experiment that settled just why these elongated creatures can run so much faster and farther than us: They have twice as much bounce in their step.

Jonas Rubenson and colleagues adorned the tame ostriches with the reflectors at points that would show how their joints moved as they sprinted down a test track. The team watched the birds run and then sampled human volunteers the same way. Rubenson’s study appears in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface.

“Cheetahs and lions are great sprinters, but they use a lot of energy when moving,” he says. “However ostriches, horses and antelopes are adapted to running fast and economically over long distances.” Rubenson says previous work had shown the ostrich uses 50% less energy running when compared with humans, yet can run at twice the speed. [Australian Broadcasting Corporation]